Review

Medical service support in multinational operations in terms of preventive medicine

  • Hakan İstanbulluoğlu

Received Date: 22.01.2010 Accepted Date: 16.02.2010 Gulhane Med J 2010;52(4):302-310

Military preventive medicine aims at preventing disease, promoting health and prolonging life, researching relationship between health and disease, and the occurrence and development of diseases, and providing countermeasures against risk factors before the disease develops in soldiers at the operation field. Turkish Armed Forces have contributed to various peacekeeping missions since 1950. The medical support given for soldiers in the operation field is provided with relatively primitive infrastructure. Additionally a safe service environment evolves into a completely new form of barracks or a war-fighting environment with insufficient conditions. From this point of view considering plannings associated with preventive medicine performed before operations has gained importance. Peacekeeping operations will likely continue in the developing world. In this review article it was aimed to discuss the current approaches about the medical support that will be given to operational troops.

Keywords: Military medicine, operation, preventive medicine, international cooperation